


A touch that heals

by sapphire_child



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Fluff, Gen, Grumpy Nine
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-04-25
Updated: 2011-04-25
Packaged: 2019-01-27 23:33:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,586
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12593024
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sapphire_child/pseuds/sapphire_child
Summary: After a wall collapses onto Nine he is characteristically grumpy and a little bit short with Rose. She of course, forgives him for everything once she sees the bruises and fluff ensues.





	A touch that heals

She was never meant to see him like this.

He’s always maintained a modicum of modesty with his companions. Well, with most of them in any case. It’s rare that any of them got to see him truly broken or bruised unless they happened to be the unlucky spectators of one of his regenerations. But even with his superior physiology there are times when even he can’t heal himself of larger injuries without some time spent in a healing trance or with help from the instruments in the medical bay.

So when there are cracked ribs or hairline fractures or internal bleeding, when he is bruised and battered and aching like the old man he is the Doctor makes a point of smiling and pretending that he’s fine, really he is, until they’re in the Vortex and he’s shunted his respective companions off to their rooms or the galley or the wardrobe room and then.

Only then does he have a chance to go and patch himself up without their worry and concern surrounding him like so much thoughtful smothering.

He can take of himself just fine thanks. He doesn’t need coddling from humans.

So when he gets trapped under a pile of rubble from a collapsed retaining wall and Rose fusses over him he’s quick to brush aside her concerns. Is quite abrupt with her really as he tries to hide just how badly he’s hurt and is hurting from it.

But this time, when he tells her he’s fine not only does she not believe him, she demands that he lets her assess the damage once they’re back in the TARDIS.

“Cos you’re so qualified to make a diagnosis?” the Doctor snaps. He doesn’t mean to but damn it, he’s _hurting_. The wall had been high and all but buried him as it fell, cracking more than a few ribs and bruising him all to hell.

Rose set her jaw, furious. “Alien or not, you can’t have half a wall fall on you and not get hurt. You’ve been moving funny ever since I dug you out of there. Or’ve you forgotten I broke three nails trying to get you out?”

She held up her hands as proof but like some poor beast with a thorn in its paw the Doctor was not so easily mollified.

“You shouldn’t take things off people who are pinned like that,” he said shortly. “The rubble might’ve been stopping a major artery from bleeding out. You take it away your patient’s dead in minutes.”

Rose looked quite stricken at that but quickly recovered her composure and her anger. “Well fine!” she snapped back. “Sorry I dug you out! Next time I’ll just leave you there shall I?”

She was already halfway out of the door before he could muster a decent retort but by then he was simply too exhausted. At least his sourness had put Rose off following and fussing over him – because of course she would. He didn’t need her sympathy, just a few good medical scanners to make sure his diagnosis was correct and then fix it.

After setting the TARDIS to drift in the Vortex, the Doctor slogged his way to the medical bay and surveyed the damage. Wincing at every movement, he peeled off jacket and jumper and gingerly applied himself to the examination table. The ribs would be easy enough to knit back together but the bruising that was beginning to bloom across his skin was quite severe. He frowned, fingering the edges of a particularly lurid one on his side.

It didn’t take long before the ribs were mostly back in place and, ignoring the TARDIS’ grumblings for not letting them heal entirely, began searching through the mess of half finished containers for something to bring out the bruises. He disliked speed-healing them using gadgets. After all, he had plenty of balms and salves from all over the universe that would reduce the pain and swelling well enough whilst his own body got on with the business of healing.

Human remedies in particular, he had found, were often surprisingly compatible with his physiology (with the unfortunate exception of aspirin) and he had a half finished tub of 31st century bruise cream that would bring out the worst of it and banish it again within a four hour period.

As it turned out though, the bruising was not only on his chest and abdomen as he had already thought. There was also a livid section of purplish-red rising on his middle back, just where he couldn’t reach. He cried out as he tried to twist around, jostling his still healing ribs and sending a spike of pain shooting through his body. For a long moment he just sat and took deep breaths before trying, stubbornly, a second time.

It was as his temper got the best of him and, gritting his teeth, twisted around to apply the salve that Rose peered in around the door. At his cry of pain she gasped and hurried in unthinkingly.

“Doctor?” she cried, reaching out to him.

“What?” he snapped, but he was so miserable and in pain that there was no bite to his voice. When she saw the bruises her face instantly softened and she ignored all of his protestations as she came into the room properly.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” she demanded, voice trembling. Her fingers didn’t hesitate to touch him, gently tracing his sore spots even as she leant around his body to survey the damage. When he flinched away from a moment of clumsy touch she immediately recoiled, her lower lip drawing itself back between her teeth in a low hiss of sympathy. “Can you even reach those ones on your back? Here...”

She took the jar from his limp grasp as she spoke and, not even waiting for an invitation, began applying it liberally to his hurts.

The Doctor was dumbfounded by the gesture. She was so gentle with him, her tiny hands gently massaging into the aching flesh until the balm was all absorbed. She didn’t stop there either, going back over all of the other bruises around his side and then working her way across his chest and down further until they were all massaged and her hands had left a pleasant trail of warmth behind.

“You’ve got magic hands,” he remarked quietly. Picking one of them up in his and regarding her palm carefully he inched a coarse thumb over her life line with curious fascination. “You’d make a great Reiki practitioner. Hands like these.”

“Better’n you,” she teased gently, taking her hand back to replace the lid and wiped her hands on her jeans. “Funny. I thought you wouldn’t bruise or nothing – bein’ alien.”

“Most species bruise if you drop a wall on them,” he griped and she smiled wide. “What?”

“You’re just daft,” she shook her head at him. “Honestly. Didn’t you think I’d be able to help patch you up?”

The Doctor sat, astounded for a moment. “Different physiology you an’ me,” he finally managed and then almost blushed as Rose ran an appraising gaze over his exposed body and shrugged.

“Doesn’t look so different to me.”

A soft humming and clicking accompanied by a dimming of lights interrupted them. The TARDIS was helpfully projecting holographic images for Rose – a lesson in Gallifreyan biology straight out of the Academy. The Doctor’s hearts ached to see it. His school days were so very long ago now, and though he had loathed the strictures and structures of learning that his people had imposed he had found himself nostalgic for those years more than once.

Sliding off the examination table, the Doctor retrieved his jumper and came to stand beside where Rose was intently studying the layout of the circulatory system, zooming along veins and arteries only to zoom out and show...

“Two hearts?” she said, in some surprise, turning to him for clarification. “Have you got _two hearts_?”

“Amongst other things,” he said, about to shrug back into his jumper when she stopped him.

“Can I feel?”

He was surprised but nodded, allowing her to position her hands, one on either side of his chest. Her eyes widened once she was able to discern the double beat and she looked up at him in obvious excitement, beaming away like she’d just discovered that he bled gold or something silly like that.

“I can feel them!” she exclaimed. “Both of them going at the same time. Like, boom-boom boom-boom...boom-boom boom-boom...oh that’s so _mad_...”

“Thanks,” he said wryly and she hastened to apologise.

“I don’t mean it’s weird or anything,” she amended, repositioning her hands once more before withdrawing shyly, as though remembering herself. “S’just different, that’s all. S’pose you need two hearts to power that big old brain of yours or something yeah?”

“Something like that,” he managed through the scratchy wool of his jumper as he pulled it back over his head. “You up for another stop?”

“Are you?” she challenged, grinning at him. And that was how they wound up on a bridge overlooking the Thames sharing a piping packet of chips between them. As his bruises slowly bloomed on his skin and then sank back into nothingness, the Doctor put his arm around a shivering Rose. Even with the painful discomfort of his still healing bones he couldn’t help but feel better for having her ear pressed against his right heart and her arms wrapped around his waist underneath his jacket.


End file.
